Mass Effect Collector's Edition Review

Bonus content that is actually worth the extra money.

BioWare endeared itself to Xbox owners the world over when it unleashed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It not only filled a void in the Xbox library with an RPG, Knights of the Old Republic did so with style. The follow-up, Jade Empire, solidified BioWare as the preeminent RPG developer on Microsoft's big, black box. Needless to say, expectations have been high for Mass Effect, the studio's first Xbox 360 release. After playing through the game more than once, we can say with confidence that Mass Effect delivers on those expectations. The ride may get a bit bumpy at times, but it's one you don't want to miss.

The game begins with the creation of your Commander Shepard. You're free to go with the model that has been used in all of the marketing, or you can make your own; male or female and with a variety of background and visual options. The decisions you make here have a substantial bearing on the game itself. Some people you meet in the game will deliver different dialogue if you're playing as a woman. Which background options you choose for your character will also shape the way people talk to you throughout the course of the game. The most important decision you'll make will be which character class to start with.

There are three primary character classes in Mass Effect; the solider, the engineer, and the biotic user. Hybrids that mix various aspects of each are also available. The kicker is that they all play vastly different from one another in combat. Based on your class, you'll have access to various powers (the biotics have more than a passing resemblance to the force powers you used in Knights of the Old Republic), technical skills, weapons and armor. The biotic class can use every power, but can only use light armor and pistols. The soldier only gets a single biotic power, but can use any weapon and heavier armor. The engineer, an afterthought class in many other games, steps up in Mass Effect to be a force of its own. He or she can hack locked consoles for info or loot, but can also be a powerhouse in battle. Many of the enemies in Mass Effect are mechanical in design and the engineer has skills geared specifically for taking them down.

When we say the classes play differently, we mean it. Having played through the game first as an adept (full biotic user) and then as a soldier, we found the combat was a whole new ball game the second time around. Though the game looks like a standard shooter, it's an RPG through and through. Choosing how to equip yourself and your party with weapons and upgrades and when to use your powers is of the utmost importance. Once you do get into the flow, you'll find that the system can be a lot of fun and allows for substantial variety in the way you play.

The combat takes a few hours to wrap your head around. Until you do, you'll want to save your progress after every battle. There's an autosave system in Mass Effect, but it isn't very effective. Nor are the almost non-existent tutorials. You'll probably find yourself dying quite often before you get into the swing of using cover effectively and making proper use of your powers.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of Mass Effect is the method used for doling out commands to your party members. If you want, you can have full control over when and how your allies use their powers. As far as motion goes, however, you only ever have direct control of how Commander Shepard moves while your two party members act on their own, with questionable AI. You can give directives to the two, such as to find cover or to move to a specific point, but not individually. Both squad members act on one command. It's so rudimentary that it makes the entire concept feel rather pointless.

Not the friendliest of faces.

It goes a step further with the way powers and skills are activated. Adepts and engineers rely on them, but even a soldier class character will make use of their skills to stay alive. Use overkill just once with a shotgun and you'll be hooked. It's unbelievably awesome. To do so, unfortunately, requires you to pause the game momentarily. Only a single power can be hotlinked to a button. The rest are called up with the Power Wheel, which is activated by holding down the right bumper. From there, you can use powers of your own or command allies to use specific ones they possess. The catch is that you can't queue up commands. Unless you want to pause the game every other second during fights, you'll probably set the AI allies to use the powers on their own volition and just ignore them through the majority of the game -- much the same as you will with their squad commands.